Here's the last chapter! I've really enjoyed writing this one and getting your feedback, so thanks for reading! I've got a new idea for a fic that keeps rolling around in my head, so keep and eye out for that if you like!

Emily met the others in the waiting room of the hospital after the ambulance arrived. Hotch and Jack were both taken to exam rooms; she hadn't been allowed to go with them and she wasn't happy about it.

"How are they?" JJ stood and asked her when she walked in.

"I don't know. Jack was up and bouncing around but I heard the paramedics say they were taking Hotch into surgery."

"Was he conscious?" Morgan asked.

"In and out." Emily told them, and it was true. They'd locked eyes a few times during the ride over but Hotch hadn't been able to say anything.

"Sounds pretty standard." Rossi said. "They'll take care of him."

Emily nodded and sat down beside Andrew, who had his head in one hand and was gripping Garcia's hand with the other.

"Has there been any word on your wife?" Emily asked him softly.

He shook his head. "The doctors are with her. She passed out in the ambulance."

As if on cue a female doctor in a long white coat appeared, grasping a pile of folders in one hand. "Mr. Jacobsen?" she asked.

Andrew rose nervously. "How's my wife?" he pleaded. "How's Kayla?"

The doctor smiled gently. "She's going to be fine." Andrew exhaled slowly and looked up at the ceiling while the doctor continued. "She's got a pretty long recovery ahead of her, physically and emotionally," she warned. "But there won't be any lasting physical damage."

"Can I see her?"

"Of course. Follow me." She turned and began walking down the long sterile hallway. Andrew followed her for two steps then stopped and turned to face the BAU team.

"Thank you. For everything." He managed a smile and jogged to catch up with the doctor, leaving everyone else back in the waiting room.

He followed the doctor down a long hallway and into Kayla's room. She was hooked up to a few monitors and had an IV poking out of the back of her right hand. He sat down gently in a chair beside her bed and grabbed her left hand with both of his. Seeing her safe was the answer to all of his prayers from the last two years. To think that this ordeal was finally over was the best thing he could have asked for.

Kayla stirred and Andrew saw panic in her eyes when she opened them. The beeping that kept track of her heart rate sped up and filled the room with the urgent noise. She jerked her hand away from Andrew's and sat up in a panic.

"Kayla? You're okay baby. You're in a hospital." The frantic beeping slowed and returned to normal and Kayla leaned her head back against the pillow.

"Andrew?" she asked softly.

"Yeah. It's me. You're okay now."

Kayla nodded. "How's Jack?"

"Agent Prentiss said the doctors were looking him over, but that he seemed okay." Andrew saw the longing in her eyes. He knew how much she loved children and it seemed like she'd grown pretty attached to Jack.

"And Agent Hotchner?"

"He's in surgery. Why don't you go back to sleep?"

Kayla nodded. "Don't leave," she told him, sliding her hand back into his.

"I'm not going anywhere," he promised. He felt Kayla tug his hand closer to her and he obliged her by lying down on the bed next to her. He wrapped an arm gently around her shoulders as she nestled into his side and placed her exhausted head on his strong chest. He pressed his cheek to her head and stroked her hair gently. "I'm not going anywhere." he repeated softly.

"One down." JJ said quietly, settling back in her chair and leaning her head against the wall after Andrew left.

It wasn't long before it was two. A different doctor returned, a man this time. "Are any of you here for Jack Hotchner?" Everyone stood in response and the doctor appeared to be rather taken aback. "I'm sorry, which of you are Jack's family?"

Morgan answered for all of them. "We're all his family." The doctor smiled as though Morgan was an amusing child.

"I'm sorry, I can only release medical information to Jack's family or those indicated on his medical chart."

Morgan was getting irritated. "His father's in surgery." He flashed his badge. "You can release any medical information you have to us."

The doctor shook his head. Normally, Rossi would admire a man that stuck to the ethical principles of his profession but in this case, it was a little ridiculous.

"Doctor, I can assure you that Agent Hotchner would have no problem with you releasing Jack's medical information to us."

"I'm sorry." The doctor said again. "I can only release information to Agent Hotchner himself or-" he checked a note on Jack's chart. "Emily Prentiss."

Emily was taken aback. Hotch had put her down as a medical contact for Jack? "I'm Emily." She spoke up and flashed her Bureau ID as proof.

The doctor smiled pleasantly, oblivious to the tense atmosphere in the room. "Jack's fine. He's got a few bumps and bruises but he'll be okay. I can get the paperwork for his discharge any time."

"Get it now." Emily told him. "I'll sign everything." The doctor nodded and walked away.

"Did you know you were Jack's medical contact?" Garcia asked her. Emily shook her head.

"I had no idea." The doctor returned with a stack of forms that Emily quickly filled out and handed back to him.

He looked things over. "Everything seems to be in order. Follow me." Emily obliged and looked over her shoulder to the team.

"I'll be right back," she told them.

The doctor led her down a long hallway and into the brightly decorated pediatric ward of the hospital. He paused at the doorway to Jack's room. "You can take him whenever he's ready." Emily nodded her thanks and stepped inside.

Jack looked so small curled up under the sheets of his enormous hospital bed. Even from the doorway Emily could see the bruise on his cheek that Gabe Foyet had left him with. Jack seemed to be sleeping but as Emily moved closer to the bed he opened his eyes and sat up smiling.

"Emily!" He held out his arms for a hug.

"Hi Jack! How are you?"

"I'm good." He looked around. "Where's Daddy?"

"Daddy's with the doctors. They're helping him get better."

Jack's face fell. "You got the bad guys, right?"

Emily nodded. "We did Jack. We got all of them. They can't hurt you anymore."

"Or Daddy?"

"They can't hurt Daddy anymore either."

"Or Kayla?"

"Or Kayla."

"How long do I hafta stay here?" Jack asked next.

"Well, guess what?" Emily teased. "You can leave right now!"

"Really?" he verified gleefully, throwing his arms around Emily's neck.

"Yup! Your Aunt Jessica brought you some clothes, but she had to leave, so I'm going to take you home, okay?"

Jack sat back. "I don't want to go home without Daddy." He started to pout. "I wanna stay here! Please?" His eyes were panicked.

"Yeah, Jack. You can stay here. Let's get you dressed and then we'll go wait with everyone else, okay?"

He nodded and reached in for another hug. "I love you Emily."

"I love you too Jack." She kissed the top of Jack's head and held him close. "Now come on, let's get dressed. I think Penelope has a candy bar for you." He grinned at him. He jumped off the bed and grabbed his clothes before heading into the bathroom. He was back out a few minutes later and reached for Emily's outstretched hand. They walked down the hall back to the waiting room hand in hand. Everyone looked the same as they had when Emily had left them a few minutes earlier: worried and exhausted. But when they saw Jack everyone put a smile on their face and, fake or not, he liked it.

There were hugs all around and, as promised, Garcia produced Jack's favorite candy bar. As she closed her purse, Emily caught a glimpse inside and had to suppress a smile; there were at least ten more of the same candy bar hidden in there.

Emily took a seat next to Morgan while Jack talked with Reid, who produced a deck of cards out of nowhere and started working on a new trick. Emily stared in their direction, not really paying attention to what was going on.

Rossi and JJ were deep in conversation and Garcia had taken a call from Kevin and was now filling him in on everything that had happened. Emily turned her head sharply when Morgan said her name and she realized that he'd already said it twice.

"You okay Prentiss?" he was obviously concerned.

She nodded. "Fine. I'm fine. I just hate hospitals."

"This has got to be hard for you considering the last time you were in one was after Doyle." Leave it to Morgan to be blunt.

"Yeah. I just can't stand the waiting."

"Now you know how we felt." Morgan couldn't resist throwing in, though he knew it was uncalled for. "Sorry," he apologized almost immediately. "I didn't mean that."

"It's okay." Emily offered a tentative smile. "I deserved that one."

"No, you didn't." Morgan said truthfully. "I know it wasn't your fault."

"That means a lot." Emily acknowledged. "Especially coming from you."

They lapsed into a comfortable silence for a few minutes before Morgan spoke again. "What's going on with you and Hotch?"

"Nothing." Emily answered.

"Emily." Morgan said. "He made you Jack's medical contact. I'm betting he made you his medical contact too."

Emily sighed. "That doesn't mean anything. It just as easily could have been you or Rossi or Reid or JJ."

"But it wasn't. Come on Emily, spill it."

She took a breath but was interrupted by a third doctor walking into the waiting room. "Are any of you here for Agent Hotchner?"

Again, they all stood. Jack slid off Reid's lap and walked up to the doctor. "He's my Daddy."

Suppressing a smile at Jack's seriousness, so similar to Hotch's, Emily spoke up. "Who's listed as his emergency medical contact?"

The doctor checked the chart. "Emily Prentiss."

"That's me." She flashed her ID again. "It's okay to talk in front of them."

"Agent Hotchner suffered massive sharp force trauma to the abdomen. There was some internal bleeding that took awhile to stop, but we managed to do it. Two of his ribs are cracked but not broken. That's the worst of it."

"So he's going to be fine?" Rossi clarified.

The doctor smiled. "He's going to be fine. It'll take some time for him to get back on his feet, but he'll be good as new in a few months."

Emily let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "Can we see him?"

"He's in recovery, and he's still unconscious. You can see him after he wakes up." The doctor offered a parting nod and walked away.

The agents settled back down in their chairs to wait but were much less tense than before. Jack climbed into Emily's lap.

"Do you want to go home Jack?" she asked him quietly. She didn't really want to leave Hotch, but she'd do whatever Jack needed.

He shook his head. "I wanna see Daddy."

"Okay sweetie. We'll stay here. Why don't you close your eyes and get some sleep? I'll wake you up when we can see Daddy."

"Promise?"

Emily nodded. "I promise."

Satisfied, Jack nestled his head into the crook of her neck as Emily wrapped her arms around him and he was asleep within minutes. Everyone else quieted down so as not to wake him and soon they were all asleep as well. All except for Emily who, once again, was left alone with her own musings.

The team was roused by Hotch's doctor a few hours later when he gently shook Emily awake.

"Ms. Prentiss?" Her eyes flew open, as did everyone else's. "Agent Hotchner is awake. You can see him now. He's in room 917."

"Thank you." She shifted Jack so she was only holding him with one arm and shook the doctor's hand with the other. He nodded, smiled, and left. Emily rubbed Jack's back softly.

"Jack?" he stirred but didn't open his eyes. "Jack, do you want to see your dad?" she felt him nod against her collarbone so she headed for Hotch's room. She stopped when she realized no one was following her.

"Are you coming?"

"We'll give you guys a few minutes." Rossi told her.

Emily nodded and carried a sleepy Jack the rest of the way down the hall. With the stress of the past few days, she wasn't surprised that he could only manage to wake himself up halfway.

True to the doctor's word, Hotch was awake when she got to the room. She paused in the doorway and took in the sight of his battered and bruised self; he somehow managed to look both groggy and in charge at the same time.

Emily found herself at a loss as to what to say and wondered fleetingly if this was what Hotch had felt like when he'd seen her after Doyle. She walked hesitantly into the room and sat in a chair beside his bed. Jack had already fallen back asleep in her arms and when she went to wake him up Hotch shook his head.

"Let him sleep," he said softly.

Emily nodded. "He wouldn't let me take him home."

"That's okay. I'm glad he's here." It was true; Hotch was relieved at seeing his son safe and sound. And he looked very comfortable tucked away into Emily's arms.

"How are you?" Emily asked him.

"Fine." Short answers meant the opposite, she knew, but she wasn't sure now was the right time to press things.

"He's okay?" Hotch verified.

Emily nodded. "A few bruises, but nothing lasting." The emotional effects, she knew, would take longer to appear and longer to go away, but they didn't need to go into that now.

"How's Kayla?"

"She's okay. Her husband's with her." Emily hesitated before asking the question that was on her mind. "Hotch, what happened in there?"

Knowing he was going to have to talk about it sometime, and consciously knowing that Emily probably would have been his first choice to talk things over with anyway, he opened up and told the whole gruesome story. When he got to the part about hearing her and Dave in the house, her face fell.

"Hotch, I am so sorry."

He shook his head. "You had no way of knowing." The last thing they needed on this team was more guilt.

"I should have known." Emily said bitterly. "I should have seen something."

Hotch shook his head slowly. "It's not your fault, Emily." He offered her something that could have been called a smile before continuing with his recounting of everything that had happened. He talked without hesitation or discomfort until he got to the final few minutes of his captivity, when Gabe had torn Jack away from him.

"I thought I was going to die. I thought Jack was going to die." Hotch said softly. Almost unconsciously, Emily put her hand over his; he didn't react. He'd never been this open before and Emily knew that the vulnerability was hard for him.

"But you didn't," she told him firmly. "You're both fine."

"I know." He paused. "But it was close. I don't know what I would do if anything ever happened to him."

"Well, then it's a good thing he has you, Hotch." Emily told him. "If anyone can shield him from whatever the world throws at him, it's you."

Hotch withdrew his hand from under Emily's and reached over to put his hand on Jack's head.

"Do you want me to put him down?" Emily asked, indicating that she could lay him on the bed next to Hotch.

"No, he looks way too comfortable." Hotch smiled. "The doctors didn't give you any trouble, did they?"

Emily shook her head. "No. But they took me by surprise. You put me down as both of your medical contacts?"

"You're the logical choice," he told her. "Jack feels most comfortable with you. There's no one else I'd rather have looking after him."

"And you?" she asked softly.

"There's no one else I would want looking after me either," he admitted.

"You know anyone on the team would do it in a heartbeat," she told him bluntly.

He nodded. "Yes, they would," he said simply, and left her to draw her own conclusions from that. "If it makes you uncomfortable, I can have it changed." His eyes searched her face.

"No, it's fine," she said honestly. "I was just surprised."

He put his hand back on his bed next to Emily's. "Don't be. Jack loves you."

A few minutes had lapsed into a half hour before the team headed down to Hotch's room. They streamed in, offering smiles and gentle pats on the back or light shoulder squeezes. Jack, Rossi noted, was still asleep in Emily's arms or rather, arm. Her other hand was resting lightly on the hospital bed, not even an inch from Hotch's.

"You always have to do things the hard way." Morgan joked. "If you'd wanted to take down the Foyets for good, all you had to do was tell us man. We would have backed you up."

The banter continued from there and the hospital room was filled with laughter. Reid's stomach started growling so Garcia passed around the candy bars from her "secret Jack stash" as she called it. Chairs were pulled up and the conversation took on a life of its own as the night went on. The nurses either didn't have the heart or weren't brave enough to kick them out; visiting hours had ended a long time ago but the laughter still flowed.

This was, Hotch realized at one point, an essential part of the healing process. Having his team around him helped him regain his sense of security and his sense of balance. That they could laugh and joke with everything that they saw every day, the horrors they witnessed, reminded him that life would return to normal eventually.

As Reid prattled on with a chemistry pun that no one really understood but laughed at anyway, Hotch looked over at Emily. She had one hand over Jack's free ear to block out the noise but the other was still on his bed. He moved his fingertips ever so slightly so they were touching hers.

She looked down at him expectantly, thinking that he needed something but when she saw the calmness on his face she gave him a small smile. He returned it in kind and their eyes stayed locked for a few seconds before they both turned their focus back to the general conversation.